Various conventional approaches in Ethernet, Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), and the like for protection switching with the objective of resiliency and redundancy at the packet layer. There has been work in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to define/extend Protection State Coordination (PSC) linear protection schemes for MPLS-Transport Profile (TP). This is described in IETF draft-rkhd-mpls-tp-sd-03.txt entitled “SD detection and protection triggering in MPLS-TP” (November 2011) and RFC 6378 entitled “MPLS Transport Profile (MPLS-TP) Linear Protection” (October 2011), the contents of each is incorporated by reference. These approaches utilize SD condition detection techniques at the physical/server layer, not at the packet layer. Also, these approaches assume there is a PSC protocol governing the protection logic. Ethernet ring protection switching is described in ITU-T G.8032/Y.1344 (August 2015) and (February 2012) entitled “Ethernet ring protection switching,” the contents of which are incorporated by reference. Conventionally, there are no approaches in G.8032 for handling signal degrade ring protection switching. Further, in Link Aggregation Groups (LAG), such as defined in IEEE 802.1AX-2008 entitled “Link Aggregation,” the contents of which are incorporated by reference, there is no signal degrade condition detection and interactions in support of LAG members switching.
As Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) networks transition to packet-based networks (e.g., Ethernet, MPLS, etc.), there is a need to support signal/service degrade detection mechanisms and provide protection switching around the degraded network connection. Traditional Bit Error Rate (BER) measurements used for SD detection common to TDM networks (Optical Transport Network (OTN), Synchronous Optical Network (SONET), Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH), etc.) are very difficult to achieve within a packet/frame transport network since packet networks use a forwarding currency of frames/packets instead of bits.